Summer Campfires and Moonlit Lakes
by 5557
Summary: When Keith took the job as a counselor at Camp Sasquatch, he never knew how much it would change him. A oneshot gift based on a comic by Emyuh-art


So the story goes that I found this lovely comic by Emyuh-art.

I found it really compelling, so I asked them if it was based on an existing fic, and they said it wasn't so I asked if I could write something for it. It's odd, because anyone close to me knows how much I get bored by modern AU because of the distinct lack of robots, aliens and laserguns. But I wanted to take a quick break from finishing Infection to refresh my brain and I was feeling inspired to write fluff, so please enjoy this very obvious piece of Canadiana.

* * *

"Hey. My kids are asleep. How 'bout yours?" Lance whispered as he cornered Keith on his way back from the washroom building up the hill.

The last purple hints of twilight were fading behind the western trees into complete darkness and Lance was nothing more than a flickering beam of flashlight and a faceless shadow in his hoodie. Keith lurched in surprise and let out a strangled shriek, nearly falling down the steep and rocky path and into the weeds.

"Holy whoa! Calm down, dude," Lance laughed as he grabbed Keith by the arm and steadied him, his warm, solid grip catching Keith even more by surprise. Nevertheless, Keith was grateful that he didn't take a dirt nap. When Lance determined that he was firmly upright, he let go of Keith, patting him on the back. Keith quickly thanked him, avoiding his eyes and scuffing the dirt with his shoe, embarrassed at being caught off-guard so easily.

"How about next time you maybe don't sneak up on me and blind me with your light?" said Keith, rolling his eyes and fiddling with the lanyard of keys around his neck to calm down.

"Sorry," Lance replied, still in the habit of swirling his flashlight around like a lightsabre.

They started walking down the hill together, back toward the circular clearing where the kids cabins were clustered.

"Rashid finally settled down when I gave him his DS back," said Keith, shoving his hands in his pockets, "He's not asleep, but he promised he'd keep it under the blankets with earbuds so the others could get some rest. Says he can't sleep because he misses his folks."

"I get that feeling," smiled Lance, nodding, "I was the exact same way when I was a kid."

"Any advice?" Keith looked at Lance hopefully.

Lance pursed his lips, turning his gaze toward the full moon slowly rising over the lake down at the bottom of the hill. Keith could finally see his face now, and he noticed the way Lance's eyes flashed when he was in deep thought.

"As rude as it sounds, honestly, just let them cry if you can," said Lance, shrugging, "Like, don't _ignore_ them, just tell them that it's ok to be sad sometimes. Don't tell them that they shouldn't be upset, or that it's not worth getting worked up about. It's a big deal to them. So just… let it happen, and give 'em a hug if they want."

Keith nodded, tucking that piece of information away in his mind, now resigned to the fact that Lance was his go-to source for child psychology. Over the past two months they'd been working together, Keith had discovered, day by day, that Lance was _brilliant_ with kids.

He initially assumed it was because Lance came from such a large family and had the experience of being both an older and younger sibling. He was the middle child of seven, as he'd explained to Keith over macaroni and cheese on their first orientation night at camp Sasquatch.

But, over time, Keith found that the level of empathy and devotion Lance poured into his job, from making sure his sports teams were evenly matched, to always having band-aids on hand, to bringing out his guitar during fire-side skits was something more than just coming from a big family.

Lance _cared_ about people like no other.

And it was in these moments, where Lance was quiet and solemn and thoughtful that Keith was grateful he was stuck working beside him for the entire summer. He would even say he admired Lance's good-cop way of dealing with kids without conflict or fuss. Truth be told, he was a little bit jealous.

"Hey," said Lance, yanking Keith out of his own head, "Wanna fuck off?"

Keith smiled at the casual invitation. In little more than a month they'd gone from enemies to friends. Mostly, Keith thought, on Lance's part. Keith was glad when Lance finally ditched the whole "bitter rivals" bit after a few initial weeks of pointless fighting.

It all started when Lance's blue team of 8 kids aged 9-12 seemed to constantly get paired up against Keith's red team in activities on the sports field and meals at the mess hall. Soon after, everything they did together became fair game. Push turned to shove and two grown counselors both made the mistake of taking the whole "camp rivalry" thing _way_ too seriously.

After a couple weeks of senseless competitiveness, censored swearing, and one of Keith's charges nearly drowning in a kayaking accident, they finally decided to give up on the idea of winning some imaginary spat and work together as a team. The entire camp was better off for it.

"What? Why are you laughing?" Lance asked, genuinely puzzled by Keith's sudden chuckle.

"Oh. Nothing," Keith waved his hand nonchalantly in the cool night air, "I was just thinking back to that one particularly nasty game of "monk's meal" a couple weeks ago when your table cheated and forced everyone at my table to eat without cutlery or cups."

Lance joined him in giggling.

"Oh. Yeah. Well, you guys won at sports day that week. It was purely an act of revenge," Lance grinned, "And, uh, it wasn't my whole table cheating. It was just me."

Keith narrowed his eyes in sarcasm, " _Great_ role model."

"Slytherin till the end," Lance winked.

"Shouldn't you be Ravenclaw if you're blue?"

Lance shrugged, " _Shouldn't you_ don't tell my team what to do, Keith. But yeah. Let's go get lost, hey?"

Keith looked at his watch. 10:08 pm. "Yeah. I want to. But I should get back to check on Rashid."

"That's fine," said Lance, "We'll make a pass along the way."

Keith felt a small leap in his chest at the idea of running away into the dark forest, out of bounds and after lights-out.

"Along the way to where?" he asked.

Suddenly a smooth, tan hand was grabbing his own and dragging him in a stumbling jog, down the rest of the steep hill to the cluster of rainbow-painted cabins in the rounded clearing, his question left totally unanswered.

Keith and Lance swung by cabin #1 on the outer end of the semicircle, which was an old log building painted cherry red and split down the middle by a divider wall. It had two doors on the front, one for girls, and one for boys. Keith walked around to the side of the cabin and checked inside the girls' window to avoid the squeaky door hinges. All dark. All asleep.

Keith then went back around and hopped up the stone steps to the porch and cracked open the boys' door. He was met by soft snores and the tiny green glow of a bright screen buried deep under a sleeping bag.

"Rashid," Keith whispered, "Rashid?"

"He's got headphones in, remember?" Lance whispered in Keith's ear, sending shivers up his spine as Lance's soft cotton hood brushed against his cheek.

Keith nodded. Rashid was a good kid. He doubted he'd be any trouble unless he stayed up all night.

"You're good. Let's go!"

Lance had him by the wrist again. Keith quickly grabbed his toque from its hook before he shut the door, and then he was outside and being dragged, jumping down off the end of the porch and hitting the dewy grass of the cabin lawn.

Keith felt a sudden surge of energy and reckless joy. The cool, moist night air hitting his face was a happy relief after a hot July day at camp Sasquatch. This particular day had been an absolutely hellish experience from start to finish and Keith wanted nothing more than a few hours of peace and relaxation to forget the whole thing.

Down the field, away from the noisy gravel pathway, Lance and Keith snuck past the sports shed and then ducked around first-aid and office building. The lights in the mess hall were still on, and through the windows they could see a few of the other counselors sitting around, chatting and having a late coffee together.

"Where are we going?" asked Keith, again, as he was continually led downhill.

"The beach!" said Lance, finally, like an excited child knowingly up to mischief.

"We're not supposed to be down there after dark!" Keith hissed as he wrenched his hand out of Lance's grip.

"Keith, that rule is for the kids," said Lance, grinning, "We're responsible adults!"

"Still against the rules. We could get fired if we're caught."

"We'll just say we're looking for someone's lost phone. And anyway, since when did you ever care about rules?"

"Since I need the money," said Keith, blandly.

 _He knew_ that _Lance knew_ that Keith would have _loved_ to jump off of the northern out-of-bounds cliff into the lake in the dark of night, but Keith had valiantly clung to his internal mantra of "$15-an-hour" with an iron grip so far, and it was starting to look like he'd have enough to pay off some of his loans before he went back to school again in the fall.

"We'll just take a look. It'll be fine. I won't make you do anything stupid, I promise."

Keith couldn't tell if Lance's moonlit smile was genuinely reassuring, or if he really just wanted to be swept away from responsibility for a little while.

"I'll blame you for everything," said Keith.

"That's fair," said Lance, slowing from their light downhill jog as they left the open fields and hit the tree line, "So, what happened? I heard your hike today was a nightmare."

Keith huffed out a heavy sigh. Just thinking about his day made his head ache and his arms and legs itch furiously. It took nearly all of his willpower not to stop and scratch at the swollen red bites all over his body.

"God, you have _no idea_ ," moaned Keith, matching his pace to walk beside Lance, his voice softly muffled by the leafy underbrush and looming pines overhead, "We get halfway in, which is like, the _furthest point out_ , since we're only going to loop back from the northern trail, and then Cassidy starts complaining that she feels weird. And of course, I have NO reference for this... you know, _what's wrong_..."

As Keith told his story, they continued wandering down the worn dirt path, towards the beach, their steps thumping on the dry and hollow ground under the enormous trees. Keith slowed down as the path curved sharply downward and became uneven with exposed roots and stones. When they knew they were out of sight of the mess hall, Lance turned his flashlight back on.

"So now Jian is behind her, and he starts laughing and pointing, and then the others are looking at her, and Lance, _there's blood on her pants_ , and now she's screaming and crying, and there's fucking bugs flying everywhere, and I'm mostly thinking, _holy shit, what if a bear smells her blood_ …"

Lance was laughing hysterically at Keith's story and in his lack of concentration he nearly tripped on a jutting root. It was now Keith's turn to grab Lance by the hoodie and stop him from falling as Lance fumbled the flashlight and it fell to the forest floor.

"Jesus," gasped Lance, "Thanks. But I think any bears would be scared away by all the noise."

"Well, yeah, now that you think about it," said Keith, letting go of Lance's hoodie but managing to sneak in a quick pet of the soft fabric, "But, like, I wasn't exactly composed at the time."

Lance snickered. "I'm imagining you pulling your hair out like you did when Dylan ran away the first time," he said, reaching down for the flashlight.

"Ugh. Yes. I'm getting to that," Keith groaned.

"What? He did it again?" Lance spun around to look Keith in the eyes and made the mistake of flashing the light directly in Keith's face once more before he realized what he was doing and dropped the beam back to the forest floor.

Keith buried his face in his hands, trying to get the blue blotches in his vision to dissipate, and after a long and mournful sigh of frustration, he ran his fingers through and swept his long, dark hair out of his eyes.

"Hold _on_! I'm getting there! So I'm trying to give Cassidy our toilet tissue, and she's just… _non-stop crying_ , and, Lance, I have _no idea_ how to deal with this or make her feel better. So I give her my jacket to wear around her waist, and now I'm being _eaten alive_ by bugs-"

"You are way too pale, dude," interrupted Lance, as they finally parted the last few trees and arrived at the stony lakeside beach up ahead, "They can see you from a mile away."

"Yeah. I know. They want my sexy body," said Keith sarcastically, rubbing his hands up and down his arms, trying to stave off the terrible itch.

Lance let out a tiny snort, but when Keith glanced over at him, Lance was biting his lower lip and avoiding his gaze. Lance quickly looked away, walking very deliberately towards the beach. Keith shook it off and went back to his story.

"And so I start hiking us back because I don't want to force Cassidy to do something she doesn't want to do, and now the other kids are complaining that they never got to see the waterfall. And so _now_ Dylan takes off _becauseDYLAN_."

Keith had his arms spread wide towards the lake in emphatic gesture, shouting his problem-charge's name as an epithet into the night.

"Oh, no."

"Oh, _yes_ ," said Keith, feeling the lakeside breeze hitting his cheeks and lightly billowing his jacket.

The full moon was rising higher in the sky and they barely had need for Lance's flashlight with the long, glittering trail of reflected light bouncing off the water. Lance walked past Keith and stopped at the edge of the shore, standing in a halo of moonlight as tiny waves lapped at the tips of his sneakers.

For a moment, Keith stood back and just watched him. He looked impressive, posed against the far lakeshore and the starry night sky. Like a majestic stag in the wilderness. Lance looked back over his shoulder at him and Keith knew he had been quiet for too long.

"So I'm running down the trail after him," Keith continued on, coming up beside Lance, "And I'm yelling at the others to stay together and don't move, and Dylan is practically _at_ the waterfall by the time I get to him. Like, I don't mean he'd just arrived. I mean this kid is now _two steps_ away from being soaking wet and I am going to get hell from his parents if he slips on a rock and breaks his neck."

"Relax. He won't," said Lance, picking up a flat shale stone and skipping it into the lake. It sputtered a bit when it hit the water and sank after several jumps.

"You don't know that! You weren't there!" retorted Keith, picking up his own stone and plainly tossing it in the lake.

"Did you do dangerous shit as a kid?"

"Yeah."

"Are you still alive?"

"Unfortunately," said Keith, hurling another, bigger stone into the water for a satisfying splash. He wasn't going to allow Lance the pleasure of knowing that he didn't know how to skip. He turned away from Lance to find another rock.

" _Oh, no_ , poor Keith forced into this _existential terror_ known as life!"

Keith heard Lance's bubbling laugh behind him, and he expected to be teased, but he was caught completely by surprise when Lance tackled him in a swooping hug, long arms wrapped around him and warm chest pressed against Keith's back. Keith resisted his instinctual urge to fling Lance off of himself immediately and let Lance rock him wildly from side to side.

"Oh no! Oh _no!Poor Keith!_ Working at summer camp is just the _worst torture_ that could _possibly_ happen to a human _being_!"

Lance's jostling and teasing eventually forced Keith to laugh along, and they both nearly fell off balance and into the water when Keith lost his footing in the sand. Keith felt hot in his cheeks. His embarrassment and discomfort grew too much, and Lance relented when Keith squirmed out of his arms and walked a few paces away, reaching for a stick on the ground.

He sat down a few paces up the beach and started drawing circles in the pebbly sand.

"It did get a little better though," he said after a while, looking up at Lance from a nice set of swirling spirals.

"Oh?"

"The other kids decided to follow after us instead of staying behind like I told them, and as I was dealing with Dylan, we all met up at the waterfall anyway. Sangmi even took Cassidy away downstream, and they were able to wash her pants a bit, and the girls pretended that they were mermaids on the rocks while the other kids were playing around in the waterfall."

Lance came over and sat down beside Keith in the sand. He started tracing his fingers over Keith's designs, placing small rocks in the centres of the circles.

"And what lesson did we learn from this?" chided Lance, with an incredibly patronizing smile smoothed over his evenly tanned face.

Keith looked up at Lance from his doodles with deadly mock-seriousness in his eyes.

"Don't have kids. Just… _don't have them_. Just let our species _die out_."

"You love them," said Lance, poking Keith in the elbow.

"I do," Keith moaned in humorous agony.

"And they're more responsible than you think," smiled Lance.

"Maybe partly," said Keith, sighing and jamming his stick into the ground, "But there's this thing I gotta put a stop to that's already started. Now, whenever anybody says, "Go red team" they all just laugh and point at Cassidy's pants."

Lance let out a guffaw, seemingly in spite of himself.

"Shut up, dude, that's bullying!" Keith kicked a spray of sand towards Lance without thinking.

"Sorry," said Lance, his laughter fading away immediately, "Yeah, you're right. Shit."

They let the silence hang between them, both deep in thought, watching the moon rise higher in the cloudless night sky.

It was quieter out here, with none of the trains or police sirens or loud neighbors that Keith had grown accustomed to falling asleep to back in the city. The only sounds were the nighttime breeze swaying the tall pine branches behind them, the endless hum of insects and the occasional swoop and cry of a bat feeding overhead. Keith watched as Lance zipped up his hoodie a little higher and wrapped his arms around his knees, hands tucked inside his sleeves like paws.

"Cold?"

"A little," Lance shrugged.

"Shoulda grabbed a hat."

"Thanks, mom."

Out here in the wilderness, the night sky was a completely different entity from what Keith was used to. Without street lamps or fluorescent signs, or tall apartment buildings cutting off the horizon, it was somehow larger than a full circle and darker than black. And it sparkled brilliantly with endless twinkling stars. The long arm of the milky way was clearly visible overhead, reaching from the mountains behind him to the other side of the lake. Keith never knew it was possible see so many stars at once with his naked eyes.

The wind picked up over the lake, pushing small waves onto the shore and Keith shrugged his jacket up a little higher, closing his own zipper. He looked at Lance with his hoodie drawn around his face and then down at his stick jammed in the middle of his sand circles. He stood suddenly and without explanation and walked silently back towards the trees.

"Hey! Are you leaving?" Lance's voice had a kind of sadness to it that Keith hadn't expected.

"No," said Keith plainly, bending down, "Grabbing wood."

Keith heard Lance breathe a small sigh of relief. Lance crossed his legs in the sand and shone his flashlight in Keith's direction, helping him spot driftwood sticks and chunks of bark between the beach and the edge of the forest.

"What happened to ' _We're gonna get caught!_ '?" asked Lance, soon getting bored and swirling his flashlight around in little figure-eights again.

Keith shrugged as he set a chunk of twisted driftwood in his arms, looking off into the trees, back towards the camp grounds.

"We can't see them, they can't see us. Now stop giving me a seizure and help."

Lance got up and wandered around the beach, finding his own pile of wood. Soon they had some empty gum wrappers shoved inside a stack twigs and Keith's lighter in Lance's hand and a tiny fire glowing in between their bodies sheltering it from the wind. With a few puffs of breath and a couple more substantial logs placed on it, the fire soon crackled with a steady and serene warmth. Lance started playing with a burning twig, rotating its glowing embers between his fingers and waving the smoke around in front of him. Keith stared into the orange flames as a piece of wet wood hissed and whined with steam.

"I'm seriously thinking of transferring Cassidy to Green cabin," said Keith, warm and comfortable next to the steady glowing heat, "At least Pidge would know what she's doing."

"Only if she wants to go," said Lance, prodding the fire and watching a spray of sparks fly up into the night sky, "She shouldn't be punished for someone else's behaviour. I mean, if Jian is the one that's doing it, he should be the one that gets transferred."

"But that's the thing," said Keith, "They're all doing it! I even caught Sangmi joining in around dinner tonight!"

"Not my sweetheart, Sangmi!" gasped Lance, clutching his heart, "I braided her hair when our groups all went swimming the other day! That girl doesn't have a mean bone in her body!"

"She knows it's wrong," said Keith, his voice low and serious, "But she just really obviously wants to fit in with everyone else."

Keith was silent for a moment, remembering his own childhood, and what it meant to grow up as an adopted Korean in an all-white town. He knew all the words and the gestures that told him he was irredeemably different. He knew what it felt like to be young and isolated and bitter. But Keith also knew why she did it. He knew what it meant for Sangmi to want to be accepted, and the steps she was willing to take to fit in. Still, it felt like a betrayal, watching her joining in and picking on her cabin-mate.

Keith wanted the kids he looked after to have a better childhood than he did, where nobody got picked on and nobody got left out. He'd grown up now, and Keith had long-since abandoned the childish idea of swearing violent revenge against bullies. He'd made peace with his own past. But, somewhere deep within him, some part of him still wanted to punish his kids.

He promised himself that he'd make sure his group knew what they were doing was wrong. He hoped that Lance would help him do it the right way.

"Well," said Lance, pouring sand and pebbles through his fingers, "I guess it's time to have a fireside chat with everyone."

Keith nodded. Leave it to Lance to be the diplomat. Maybe he could bring the other counselors around and talk to his group. Turn it into a life lesson or a skit or something. Keith kicked at the sand with his heels, sinking his feet more comfortably into the ground. They'd find a way to figure everything out. Together.

"Ok, so what did your group do today?" asked Keith, trying to change the subject.

"Dude, we just did crafts."

" _Fuck off!_ " wailed Keith as he threw himself back onto the sand.

Lance was laughing at him again.

"Nah, it was fun. Here. Look, I just remembered. I made you something."

Keith lifted his head and propped himself onto his elbows, peering over the flames of their campfire as Lance dug in his pants pocket. He pulled out a small, fluorescent green pile of plastic and unfolded it. It was a lizard charm made from bright round beads and gimp.

"Worked on it all afternoon," Lance smiled, clearly proud of himself, "It's the gecko of friendship!"

Keith offered out his hand for Lance to drop it into, but Lance held off for a moment, fiddling with it.

"Aaand," Lance added, "It's also a bracelet!" he grinned, shoving up his sleeve and revealing his own matching orange gecko on his wrist.

"I'm not wearing that."

"Oh, come on!" whined Lance, "It's the latest fashion! See? All the 12-year-old girls are wearing them! Fareeha made mine!"

"That's because she has a crush on you."

"And who am I to deny the blossoming of young love?" Lance draped his arm over his forehead dramatically.

"Don't encourage her!"

"I'm not," said Lance, "Besides, they're only with us for five more days, then we'll never see them again. She'll either forget about me, or remember me as 'that hot counselor from summer camp that one year'."

Lance played with the little lizard craft in his hands, rolling the plastic beads with his fingers..

"Still don't want it? We'd match…"

Keith looked at the bracelet Lance held, and at the mild disappointed in his eyes and sighed in defeat, turning his hand over and offering his bare arm to Lance.

"I didn't make you anything," he said as Lance tied the lizard's beaded tongue to its tail around his wrist in a complicated knot.

"Didn't have to," smiled Lance, "Sounds like you had your hands full anyway."

Keith snorted, and Lance leaned back, sliding the lizard around on his wrist to face upright and examining his handiwork with glowing approval. Keith looked at the gecko of friendship now tied to his hand. There were no mistakes in the colourful beading and the plastic twine was taut and even. It was a well-made, if simple, children's craft.

"So this makes us officially official best friends?" asked Keith.

"Best coworkers, anyway," said Lance, now snapping a long branch into two with his foot and putting the pieces onto the fire.

"But..." Keith paused before continuing, hesitant to say the words he'd never really said out loud before.

"Do you really think of me as your friend?" He asked, his voice a lot more subdued.

"Yeah, dude!" Lance slapped Keith on the back and he coughed, choking on his own spit. It was such a jovial reaction to his question, Keith wondered why Lance felt the need to be so energetic about it when a simple 'yes' would have sufficed.

"Even after the summer is over and we both go back home?" Keith was letting his mind wander again. This job had been good for him. He'd learned about responsibility and teamwork. He learned about leadership and compassion and sacrifice.

And he'd met Lance.

He met someone who taught him that there was more to life than saving up for college just to get a career and buy an apartment. He taught him that trying new things was easy when you have someone young looking up to you to make sure it's safe. He taught him that kids weren't all monsters and that just because you're in charge doesn't mean you can't also have fun.

As much as it had been a life-changing experience, Keith knew it would have to come to an end eventually. He'd have to leave Lance and the camp and the kids far behind when he went back to school in the fall.

"Yeah, of course we'll still be friends, man," said Lance, "You have me on facebook and snapchat."

 _Sure_ , thought Keith, _Long-distance friends is better than nothing._ Lance seemed to notice his sour look. He nudged Keith with his elbow, and raised his eyebrow in a questioning glance.

"Yeah. I'm just thinking," said Keith, "We had a lot of fun working together at this job, and… When it's all over and we go home, Y'know... I'll kinda miss you when you're-"

Keith immediately cut himself off.

"Oh? You were saying?" said Lance with a sudden, predatory grin.

"No. Nope. I didn't say anything," Keith sputtered, " _I said_ I'll maybe- I MIGHT... _remember fondly_ , your company, like, when we're not working together. Anymore."

"Nope. Nono. That's _not_ what you said," trilled Lance in a sing-song voice.

"That's _exactly_ what I said!" growled Keith in indignation.

"Because it sounded almost like," Lance taunted, toothy grin still on his face.

"Shut up!" Keith clenched his hair in his fists.

"You're _saying_..."

"No!" Keith pounded his fists into the sand.

"You're gonna _miss me-_ "

"No! I take it back!"

"When I'm _gone_." Lance was giving Keith finger guns.

" _Don't_ sing Cups! _Don't sing Cups!_ " Keith lunged towards Lance, kicking sand into the fire and trying to smush Lance's face shut with his hand. Lance tried to move out of the way but it wasn't fast enough. Keith was over top of him, and Lance had to throw his body to the side to avoid them both landing in the fire and getting burned. Keith missed his target slightly and his finger slipped into Lance's mouth. They stared at each other in a moment of shock.

"Too late! I gotta!" gurgled Lance, from under Keith's weight.

Lance's chest was bouncing with joyful laughter, and he was craning his face away from Keith's arms. Embarrassed and disgusted with himself, Keith shifted away from Lance's lap as Lance pushed him off. Lance crossed his legs as Keith returned to his former spot and started slapping his thighs and clapping rhythmically, humming the opening tune.

Keith knew what came next. It was what happened at every dinner, every night of camp.

Lance sang Cups.

Lance flipped his plastic tumbler upside-down and clapped his hands on the folding tables in the mess hall and he sang Cups with the voice of a goddamn angel. He sang the whole song, and everyone listened. And Keith had to fight to keep from blushing, especially when Lance sang in his direction from way across the room.

"I got my ticket for the _long_ way round. Two bottle o'whiskey for _the way_..."

Lance sang Cups, and his entire table usually joined in after their first night. And sometimes, at the end of one of their two-week programs, he'd have taught the entire camp how to slap and clap in time with him in an enthusiastic chorus.

"I regret this!" grumbled Keith, "I regret you! I regret everything!"

And Keith did regret it. Because it meant sitting next to someone who, even without his guitar, was a musical genius.

"And I sure would like some _sweet company_ -"

Why did he have to look directly in Keith's eyes when he sang that line? Surely there were other things outside worth looking at.

"And I'm leavin' tomorrow _whaddaya say_?"

Yes.

"When I'm gone, when I'm _gone_ -"

Keith hated that line. He hated the way Lance's voice soared with the melody and the way Lance looked at him when he sang it. His cheeks were burning and his stomach was somewhere in his lungs.

"You're gonna _miss me_ when I'm gone!"

He would.

"You're gonna miss me by my hair-"

And his warm brown skin, and his smile, and the smell of him mixed with campfire smoke and Lance's cheap Axe deodorant.

"You're gonna miss me _everywhere, oh_ -"

Oh, he would. And Keith desperately didn't want to think about it.

" _You're gonna miss me when I'm gone._ "

Keith didn't know what to do with himself. Lance finished singing and he was still staring into Keith's eyes and the only sound was the wind in the trees overhead and the pop of sparks from the campfire as a burning log collapsed in on itself.

Why did he do that? Why force the reminder that he was never going to see Lance again after this? Why bring him out for a fun night of escape, only to push him away like that?

The fire burned, hot and steady but Keith felt himself unable to relax. Lance was looking at him like he expected something. And now Keith was wracking his brain trying to come up with something appropriate to say, but all he could think about was how nice Lance's face looked when it was lit by firelight.

"It was a good song," said Keith, and it sounded bland and awful, "You… did a good job singing it."

Lance had that softly disappointed look again. It wrenched at Keith's gut. He was supposed to say or do something. But what? Keith poked at the fire with a stick. Lance curled up and settled his chin on his knees, watching him.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Keith's heart leapt in his chest.

"When you said before that you were unfortunately still alive…" Lance's voice was calm and serious, "Do you ever get bored? Like, of life?"

"Well, life is boring," said Keith, almost apologetically.

"Duh, I know, but… do you ever feel like you're meant to do something better?" Lance was looking up now, at the full moon high overhead in the sky.

"Like what?"

Lance shrugged. He was holding his flashlight in both of his hands, turning it on and off absently.

"I'm not sure. I just wonder if studying to be a social worker is really my calling. I mean, _I like it_ , but I sometimes wonder, just- if I'm really living up to my full potential."

There he was again. That thoughtful, quiet, pensive Lance that was so rare and so special to Keith. His eyes reflected the moonlight beautifully, and Keith wondered how deep Lance's thoughts went when he was alone.

"Ok," said Keith, taking a chance, "If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?"

Lance hummed a bit. "Reasonably or unreasonably?"

Keith thought for a moment.

"Unreasonably."

"A dog," grinned Lance.

" _Wow_ ," said Keith, dryly, "Nice use of your full potential. Ok, reasonably."

"An astronaut." Lance's boyish grin was incredibly disarming before Keith fully processed what he'd said.

"That's not reasonable!"

"More reasonable than being a dog!" huffed Lance, indignantly.

"Don't you have to have perfect eyesight for that?" asked Keith, thinking back to some documentary he'd watched a while ago on how astronauts were chosen and trained.

"Yeah. You have to be, like, a fighter pilot first," Lance's voice sank with every word, "Damn. Thanks for crushing my dreams with my contacts."

Keith felt a sinking weight in his stomach. He wanted that smile back. He wanted the childlike optimism Lance was known for.

"Sorry."

Was that enough? Keith hoped it was. Lance was staring at him again.

"Nah, I'm just kidding." Lance's smile had returned, but his voice was still slightly flat.

"Ok, but why an astronaut?"

Lance breathed a deep sigh, and sat up, lifting his hands from where he'd buried them in the sand and waving them in large gestures in front of his face. He always liked to explain things with his hands.

"Because I think it'd be cool to explore space and discover new worlds and maybe aliens and get off of this boring rock. I could fly away and help humanity and go down in the history books as a hero. Plus, y'know, _Star Wars_."

"Somehow I knew that was gonna come up," said Keith.

They both laughed.

"Hey." said Lance, "Do you think aliens are real?"

"Totally." Keith nodded solemnly.

"How do you know?"

"The surest sign that intelligent exists is that none of them have tried to contact us yet," said Keith, taking his used gum out of his mouth and throwing it into the fire. It hissed and bubbled and burned.

"Ha! Ok, you salty jerk, how about you? Unreasonable."

Keith turned to look at Lance with that same deadpan stare.

"A white dude."

Lance snorted with laughter. "Why?"

"Because then I wouldn't have to work nearly as hard in life," said Keith, folding his arms behind his head.

Truthfully, he wasn't entirely joking. Keith had always had mixed feelings regarding his adoptive parents and his hometown. Of course they loved him unconditionally, and they had provided for his every need. But they never knew what it meant to not be white in a white world. Sometimes, standing next to him, Keith wondered what it would feel like for a son to look like his father.

"Fuck 'em," said Lance, spitting out his gum into the fire, "You're fine the way you are, tiny Asian dick and all."

"Fuck you! It's not _tiny,_ you piece of shit!" Keith didn't know what prompted Lance's brain to make that connection and he didn't care. He was already flinging tiny pebbles in Lance's direction and Lance was laughing and cowering, hands up, trying to cover his face.

"I saw it when we were showering!" Lance giggled and shrieked as Keith hailed more rocks onto him with serious force.

"Asshole! Why were you looking!?"

Lance just laughed. Keith grabbed a fistful of sand and flung it at him.

"Give me another piece of gum!" Keith was standing over Lance, and Lance was on his back, arms and legs curled up defensively, grinning all the while.

"I don't have any left!" Lance was crying with laughter.

"Fuck you! Go jump in the lake, you useless asshole! I fucking dare you."

Keith pretended to kick Lance and swung at the air over his legs.

"Really?"

Keith paused his assault for a moment, considering.

"Yeah. Do it."

Lance tentatively lowered his hands from his face. They stared at each other until Lance's gaze slipped slightly past Keith and he knew Lance was looking at the moon.

Lance relaxed his legs and back onto the sand, resting his head on his hood.

"Fine. I will... If you join me."

He was looking up at Keith again with eyes full of humour and mischief and… something else.

It was surely a bad idea. But Keith wanted to know what that something else was. Keith grabbed his lanyard of keys and slipped it over his head, placing them on a piece of driftwood.

"If I count to three, you're not gonna fake out on me, are you?" asked Keith standing on the tip of the shore in nothing but his boxers, jacket and pants haphazardly flung aside and shoes and socks abandoned near the campfire.

"No way. I'm in it to win it." Lance was bouncing on the tips of his toes, flicking his wrists with barely contained anticipation.

"This is a terrible idea," grinned Keith.

"This was your idea," retorted Lance, licking his lips.

The wind had slowed and the night air was cool and still. The water was black and clear, visible to incredible depths in the daytime, but mysterious and hauntingly beautiful at night. Keith gulped at seeing Lance's body nearly naked in the moonlight. It shouldn't have disturbed him the way it did. He'd seen him plenty of times before in swim trunks over on the docks or in the boys showers. Maybe it was the fact that it was nearly midnight, and they were alone together.

Lance winked at him.

"Three"

They counted together, Lance swinging his arms by his sides.

"Two"

Keith was crouched and ready.

"One"

A last flicker of hesitation and regret was exhaled out of Keith's lungs and replaced by cold air and reckless excitement.

"Go!"

Keith ran, crashing into the water, slamming into the lapping waves as the cold shock hit his body.

Up, past his thighs, hitting his stomach and his shoulders, he pushed into the water with Lance by his side. Keith grabbed a lungful of breath and they dove under together, reaching a few more meters into the depths of the lake.

Warm air hit his chest as Keith pulled out of the waves and he could feel goosebumps forming over his skin. Lance shook his head and water whipped from the tips of his short hair.

"Oh, god! I think one of my testicles just un-descended!" shrieked Lance, "Like, it's gone, buddy. It has run for safe cover into my body."

He was paddling about, in the water, eyes wide and mouth open and gasping.

"Uh, ok, who was just talking about tiny dicks before?" laughed Keith.

"Shut up! Lakes don't count! It's fucking cold, dude!"

Keith felt a certain private satisfaction when he discovered that, after were both hired, he had a much easier time swimming in the cold Canadian lakewater than Lance.

"Yeah, no shit!" Keith taunted, trying to keep the quiver in his voice unnoticeable, "What do you want me to do, cradle you in my arms?"

"Ooh, _romantic._ " Lance was backstroking lazily through the low waves.

"Hah!..." Keith tried to laugh it off, but it came out weird and strangled. And he swore that Lance noticed.

And now Lance was swimming towards him.

Keith settled his feet into the silty ground, just tall enough to stand on the tips of his toes. His breathing was getting heavy, and his muscles were tight. It was because the water was cold, he told himself.

Now Lance was in front of him, his face lit by pale moonlight, and he was smiling. His body sent small ripples through the water that lapped at Keith's shoulders. Keith could feel the warmth of Lance's body radiating through the water.

Lance reached his hand, up, out of the water, and brushed the soggy strands away from Keith's face.

Keith's cheek burned under lance's touch, and his mouth hung numbly open.

This wasn't what he was expecting at all.

After so many weeks of friendship, this wasn't what he was expecting at all.

The hand fell back down and disappeared into the water and Keith felt two arms wrap around his waist, slowly enveloping him in a strong and steady embrace.

He could feel Lance's heart beating. He couldn't think. He could only feel.

Keith found his own arms, and now they were up, out of the water and wrapped around Lance's neck. He could feel Lance's hot breath on his skin as he tucked his head affectionately into the crook of Keith's neck.

Keith was looking at the moon when Lance kissed his neck, his mouth burning against Keith's cold, wet skin. It was quick, and gentle, and Keith let out a tiny gasp before he rolled his head to the side, yearning for more.

Lance moved up. Up, from the base of his collarbone, to under his ear and his jaw, all the while Keith's eyes were shut tight and his whole body was shivering.

Twice on his cheek.

And then Lance's lips met his own, and Keith was drowning, as liquid fire poured through him and he discovered a whole different type of need and friendship.

Lance pulled away at last, still smiling, his breath quick and his body shaking under Keith's arms. They stood together in the water, breathing and shivering and holding one another tightly, looking into each other's eyes.

"And what about reasonable?" whispered Lance, eventually, "What would you be?"

"An astronaut," breathed Keith.

"Why?"

"So I could still be with you."

And he kissed Lance deeply.

Lance broke away from his lips, smiling in a dizzy happiness. "And we'd go on awesome adventures and fly around in space, discovering new planets and new aliens."

"And we'd save the galaxy from evil," said Keith, "Wouldn't be anything boring or normal about it."

Keith smiled at Lance, as the midnight moon shone overhead and their campfire burned steadily back on the shore.

"Yeah," said Lance, "Maybe in some other universe, we're like… space ranger partners."

Keith closed his eyes and smiled as Lance held him in his arms.

Maybe.

In some other world.

The End

* * *

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